


The Constant Beat To My Heart

by SublimeDiscordance



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: (not until later), (though they don't know), Cyber sex, Gages-centric, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-02
Updated: 2014-04-02
Packaged: 2018-01-17 21:48:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1403626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SublimeDiscordance/pseuds/SublimeDiscordance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It starts as a dumb excuse in elementary school for them to practice cursive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Constant Beat To My Heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [suyari](https://archiveofourown.org/users/suyari/gifts).



> NOTE: this is Gages-centric. For some reason AO3 keeps putting the Beckets tag first. 
> 
> Written for the prompt: "Gage Twins (separated at birth); Long time pen pals finally meet"
> 
> This was long enough that I decided to give it its own story instead of sticking it in with the tumblr ficlets. Suyari, this is all for you, dear.
> 
> Unbeta'd. And written in, like, three hours. So if you spot any errors feel free to let me know.
> 
> Story Title comes from "Symmetry" by Little Boots: " _You're the night to my day / And the left to my right / The blood to my veins / And the dark to my light / The stop to my start / And the constant beat to my heart_."

It starts as a dumb excuse in elementary school for them to practice cursive. 

They’re given another student's name and told to write them a letter in cursive— _only_  in cursive—and then Mrs. Addams will seal the letter in an envelope for them and mail it off to a school somewhere in California. A transcontinental pen pal program, she calls it. Most of the other kids complain, saying that it’s Mrs. Addams just being creepy and weird again and do they have to? Trevin, on the other hand, doesn’t mind. He  _likes_  writing in cursive, enjoys the whorls and loops and the way all the letters in a word are connected instead of just being closer together than others like in print. 

He looks down at the name he’s been given: Bruce. Huh. A boy, then. Trevin sets to work, carefully scrawling out a message.

 _Dear Bruce_ , (because Mrs. Addams had taught them it was only polite to start a letter that way)

_My name is Trevin, I’m eight years old and I’m from New York. I hope we can become good friends this year. I suppose I should tell you a little about me. I don’t have any brothers or sisters, and I like hiking and computers. What about you? Sorry if you can’t read this very easily. My cursive isn’t very good yet._

_From,_  
 _Trevin Peters_

 

 

About three weeks later, Trevin receives his response—well, more to the point, the entire class gets their responses, but that doesn’t matter. Mrs. Addams smiles happily down at him as she hands him the envelope, saying, “The teacher in the class we’re doing this with told me that your partner was the first to hand in his letter. Sounds like you’ve made a friend already, Trevin. Well done.”

Trevin squeaks out a soft word of thanks, rushing back to his desk from the front of the room. He tears his letter open almost at once, unfolding it and taking in the slanted handwriting. It looks wrong for some reason, and it isn’t until he frowns and turns the page this way and that that he realizes the letters are slanted  _backwards_. Huh. Still, it’s perfectly legible, so he reads on.

_Dear Trevin,_

_Since you already know my name is Bruce I guess I won’t bother with that. I’m also eight and from California. Thank you for your letter. It was fine, I like your cursive even if you do it the wrong way. It’s really pretty here. I love the beach. Me, Mom, and Dad go almost every weekend. Dad never wears enough sunscreen so he always gets burned. It’s really funny watching him try to sit in the car on the way home.  Mom says it’s because his mom was Irish. She also says that means I’m a part Irish, too, so I guess that’s something about me. I really like lacrosse. My dad got me a stick and everything, and me and my friends play sometimes. I’m way better than all of them. I don’t have any brothers or sisters, either._  
 _So, how’d you end up with a name like Trevin? Are you a boy or a girl?_

_From,_  
 _Bruce Gallagher_

Trevin feels a flash of annoyance flush through his veins at the question about his name, but, then again, it wasn’t anything he was unused to. He pulls out a sheet of paper and starts writing his response.

 

 

After getting over some initially bumpy ground (Bruce had apologized profusely in his next letter even though Trevin hadn’t said anything about the question about his name; apparently, he’d told his mom and dad what he’d written and they’d explained to him why it wasn’t very nice. Trevin forgave him, of course), Trevin and Bruce continue sending each other letters throughout the school year. In that time, he actually grows to think of the other boy as his friend. He tells Bruce about his adopted parents, how he didn’t know his biological parents but how he sometimes wonders about who they were. He tells Bruce about his desire for a sibling—a brother, a sister, he doesn’t care, just  _someone_ —born from the fact that his mom can’t have kids due to some disease she’d had as a child. In return, Bruce tells Trevin how he’d had an older brother, but that he’d been killed while on deployment just before he’d been born.

 _It’s not big deal,_ he’d written.  _I never got to meet him, so I didn’t even know him. All I have are a few old pictures he sent Mom and Dad._

All too soon, the school year is wrapping up, and Trevin realizes that he won’t have any way of contacting his friend once this little cursive exercise ends. Trevin asks his parents if he could give the other boy his address so that they could continue writing to each other, and they had agreed,. In his last letter to the other boy through the school, Trevin includes a printout from his mom and dad that contains their address, just to be sure it was legible. Bruce’s next letter arrives at Trevin’s house instead of the school.

After that, their communication increases in frequency, no longer bound by the time it takes the rest of their classmates. Eventually, when snail mail proves to be too slow in keeping each other up to date, they exchange emails, and, later, once they get them, cell phone numbers.

The two talk about everything. Trevin tells Bruce about the hikes he and his parents go on—they have a favorite spot along the Appalachian trail up in Vermont that they visit regularly—and the several memorable times they’ve gone snow-shoeing. Bruce, in turn, tells Trevin about the time his dad got stung by a jellyfish at the beach and they’d needed to take him to the hospital, and the time that a shark had come up to Bruce while he was swimming and just drifted beside him for the better part of four minutes before making its way back out to sea. Very quickly, they discover that they have the same birthday—something both boys find endlessly amusing, and it becomes something or a running joke between them—so they always make sure to call one another. Indeed, as they get older, it becomes a competition between them to see which could call first at midnight in each of their timezones. Trevin tells Bruce that the other boy has an unfair advantage because he isn’t as tired, which always makes them both laugh. 

 

 

Trevin is in sixth grade when his adoptive mother gets pregnant. The doctors call it a medical miracle. Bruce is the first person he calls. 

"I’m gonna have a baby brother!" he squeals happily into the microphone as soon as he hears Bruce’s voice on the other end.

"That’s great, man," Bruce returns, laughing slightly, his slight Californian drawl stretching to last word in a way that never ceases to be amusing in Trevin’s mind. "Just, uh, maybe next time don’t make me go deaf, yeah?"

Trevin rolls his eyes even though he knows the other boy can’t see it. “Shut up, dude, this is freaking  _awesome_. You know I’ve always wanted a brother.”

"Yeah, I know," Bruce replies, voice fading slightly before perking back up. "Hey, have your folks picked out any names yet?"

"Well, I mean," Trevin rubs the back of his neck sheepishly, something his mom calls one of his ‘tells’, though he doesn’t quite know what she means by that, "they don’t actually know if it’s a boy or a girl yet, but I just  _know_ it’s gonna be a boy.”

Bruce’s snort comes through the phone like a rush of static. “And you know this, how?”

Trevin gives his friend a snort of his own.

"Because I just know, okay? Big brother intuition. And besides, I’m gonna try to have my parents name him Bruce. After you."

There’s silence on the other end.

"Uh, Bruce?" he asks into the phone. "Bruce you still there?" He pulls the phone away from his ear, checks that the call hasn’t disconnected—it hadn’t—before trying again. "Bruce?"

After another moment of silence, a heavy breath filters through the connection.

"Wow, Trev, that’s… wow. I don’t know what to say, man."

Trevin shrugs at the wall. “Nothing you hafta say. I dunno that I’m gonna manage to convince them, but, y’know, figure I might as well give it a try.”

They talk for a few more minutes after that, Bruce suggesting progressively more ridiculous names like Curly, Algernon (Trevin tells him he is _not_  going to let his parents name his brother after a damn mouse), and, finally, Sunshine Starflower. 

"I’m hanging up now!" Trevin finally shouts over the connection, barely getting the words out past his laughter. 

"I’ll talk to you later, man," Bruce says back, his own laughter clear in his voice. 

 

 

When Bruce Charles Peters is born, Trevin is thirteen and is just finishing the seventh grade.

Trevin knows instantly that the kid’s got him totally whipped. 

He calls Bruce that night, telling him how cute his brother is, how he’d made the most adorable cooing sounds as he clung blindly to Trevin’s fingers; how the baby hadn’t cried except once, when he was hungry. How Trevin is helping his dad get the baby room into shape at long last. However, his friend makes an offhand comment that makes Trevin stop short.

"Sorry, what was that?"

"I said," Bruce laughs, "that when he grows up you’re gonna have to teach him all about girls and be the cool older brother."

"Uh, yeah," Trevin answers lamely, the phone’s surface suddenly slick as his hands start sweating. "I, uh, yeah. I gotta go, but I’ll call you later, okay?"

"Sure thing, Trev," Bruce answers, clearly not hearing the slight tremor in Trevin’s voice. "Talk to you later. Don’t let the brat take up all your time: save some for your poor, lonely friend, alright?"

"Yeah, sure," Trevin answers before disconnecting.

Something about Bruce’s words bother him. He’s not sure what. Sitting in the silence of his room, the clock telling him that it’s almost midnight, it takes him a few minutes to realize what it is. 

Bruce had talked about Trevin teaching little Bruce everything he knew about girls. Except, Trevin doesn’t know anything about girls. He’s never dated one. Hasn’t ever really wanted to, really. 

He doesn’t know what this means.

When he calls Bruce the next day, he still doesn’t have an answer. So he doesn’t talk about it.

 

 

Trevin is fourteen and just starting ninth grade when Bruce Charles Peters dies. 

A heart defect, the doctors say. Something small that just built up over time. Undetectable until they took his baby brother’s dead body apart piece by piece and dug around inside. The thought makes Trevin want to throw up.

He texts Bruce on the way home, asking him if he has a skype. He doesn’t get an answer until his parents are pulling into the driveway, none of them saying anything. 

‘ _yeah, y?_ ’

‘ _Need to talk. Need to see. Please._ ’

Trevin gets back into his room, slamming the door shut and pacing beside his bed, laptop open on the covers as he waits. He taps his phone in his hands, tossing it nervously, holding back the gaping chasm in the back of his mind that’s waiting to swallow him whole. Finally, his phone vibrates.

‘ _sure. vid right?_ ’

Trevin responds in an affirmative, sending his username along for the ride. Less than a minute later, his Skype beeps at him, and he sees that he’s got a new contact request. It takes him all of three seconds to accept the request and start a video call with Bruce. It rings once, twice, and then starts connecting. 

As soon as the call connects, their video starts loading, and Trevin holds his breath. If he weren’t already in such a state of near-panic, he’s pretty sure he’d much more appreciate the fact that this is the first time he or Bruce have seen each other. 

"Dude, what’s up?" comes Bruce’s voice through the connection, and Trevin opens his mouth to answer, but then the video loads and his words get stuck in his throat. 

A boy of fourteen is staring back at him, thick-rimmed infinity frame glasses perched on his nose. He can’t tell what color his hair is because the quality and lighting are kind of bad, but he can tell Bruce has short, dark hair—unlike Trevin, who, about a year and a half ago, decided to just let his dark brown hair grow out; now, it’s approaching his shoulders. His face is angular and handsome—for a fourteen year old, anyway—and some part of Trevin’s mind thinks the glasses make him look downright cute, setting off the squareness of his jaw nicely. However, more than Bruce’s physical appearance, it’s the other teen’s actual existence—visible, concrete existence—that makes the words lodge in Trevins’ throat.

"I…" he says softly, unable to speak.

"Dude, your hair is really long," Bruce comments with a slight smirk and a chuckle. The levity is what breaks Trevin.

He doesn’t know quite how it starts, but he ends up falling over, out of view of the camera, and just sobbing into his sheets. Bruce calls for him, but Trevin can’t do anything more than feebly push at the computer, swerving it until the webcam in the screen is pointed in the air above him. Somewhere, amidst the crying, he manages to explain what happened to his friend. It takes about an hour, maybe two—Trevin had long since stopped checking his clock—but, eventually, Bruce manages to talk him down, offering words of comfort and sympathy.

"I’m sure you were the best thing to ever happen to Baby Bruce, Trev," he tells the other teen. "He was so lucky to have you for a brother."

That makes Trevin snort, laughing messily for the first time since they’d gotten to the hospital. “Dude, I was a horrible big brother. He probably thought I was his big sister or something. And besides, all I did was help Mom and Dad when they were too tired or whatever.”

"Okay, first of all, dude, shut up about the girl thing. You have long hair, yeah, but you don’t look girly. It looks good on you."

The words make something in Trevin’s belly heat, but he ignores it because Bruce is still speaking, arms crossed.

"—nd you did way more than any other teenager I know probably would. That makes you an awesome older brother. So there. Your argument is invalid."

Trevin blinks at the screen once, twice, before finally offering his friend a watery smile.

"Did you just try to use an internet meme to try and cheer me up?"

Bruce cocks his head to the side, grinning.

"Did it work?"

"Ugh,  _shut up_ ,” Trevin laughs. It doesn’t feel entirely real, and there’s still the matter of the warm fluttering in his gut, but at least he doesn’t feel as miserable as before.

"But, uh, thanks Bruce."

"Any time, Trev."

 

 

He’s fifteen years old and halfway through his freshman year of high school when he has an epiphany. 

The entire world spins around him, and Trevin has to clutch at his locker as he’s in the middle of changing into street clothes after track practice. He quickly dons his pants and shoves his track shorts into a bag that he stuffs into his backpack to take home and wash, and tries not to trip over his own feet as he makes his way to the pick up/drop off area of the school parking lot. 

That night, he stares at his skype client, watches as the icon for Bruce Gallagher shifts to green, and tries to resist the urge to vomit. 

A few seconds later, a call pops up. Trevin answers it with video, as they normally do, and almost jumps out of his skin when he sees that Bruce is shirtless. His friend has apparently joined the lacrosse team at his school, and Trevin can see that it’s doing wonderful things for his physique. Already, he can see a six pack developing in his friends abdomen, and, for the first time, he notices that Bruce’s arms are actually pretty big around. Shit. This isn’t making this any easier.

"Hey, Trev," Bruce says by way of greeting, munching on something that crunches loudly and looks suspiciously like Cheetos. The other teen takes a moment to lick his fingers clean before asking, "How was track practice?"

The way his friend is practically giving his digits a blowjob is _really_ not helping. Trevin opens his mouth to say good, fine, nothing out of the ordinary, but instead the words, “I’m gay,” fall out.

Bruce freezes, cheeto suspended between the bag and his mouth.

"Wait, what?" he asks, putting the cheesy puff back into its bag and sliding closer to his laptop, licking his fingers again as his face fills the screen. "Did you just say…?"

"Please don’t make me repeat myself, Bruce," Trevin begs softly, eyes burning slightly as tears form at the corners of his eyes. "Just… say you hate me and be done with it, okay?"

There’s a beat of silence during which Bruce just blinks at him, then sits back and takes another cheeto from the bag and munches on it. He swallows, sucks the cheese dust from his fingers, and then finally says, slowly, clearly, “Dude, I don’t hate you. I’m just… really stunned you told me is all. Like, wow. Thank you?” The last two words sound almost like a question, though Trevin’s pretty sure they aren’t actually one. “I’m just really happy you trusted me this much with something this personal.”

The breath he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding explodes from Trevin’s chest, and he nearly collapses with relief. “So, you really don’t—”

"Hate you? Dude, I said I didn’t, alright?" Bruce sighs, rolling his eyes. "Besides, it’d be really hypocritical of me to hate you for being gay."

Trevin can’t breathe again. His lungs have frozen. He literally cannot move. He knows his eyes are widening, can feel his lids pulling back further and further as Bruce lifts his hands, still holding his bag of junk food, and says in a high, sing-song voice, “Surprise!”

"You…" Trevin finally manages to get out. Bruce just nods.

"Since the day I was born, yeah. Pretty much figured it out for real in, like, god, sixth? Seventh grade? Something in there."

Trevin just blinks. He still can’t breathe. “Why…”

Bruce nods at him, using a cheeto to point at his camera. 

"Why didn’t I tell you? Because, I dunno, it just never came up in conversation?"

"Still," he adds, popping the cheeto-pointer into his mouth, "it’s nice to have someone to talk to about it and stuff, y’know? I don’t have any gay friends around here—which, y’know,  _weird_ , because California—and I can’t exactly talk to my parents about it because, well, they’re not gay? And awkward? I mean, sure, they know, but still—hey, do your parents know?”

Trevin blinks at the screen, trying to process the words practically flying at him, and then the question catches up with him and he shakes his head. 

"No. You’re, uh, the first one I’ve told."

The noise that Bruce makes is barely human. If Trevin were feeling generous, he’d call it a squeal. 

"Dude! That’s so awesome! I mean, you should probably tell them—do they seem cool to you? Either way, I’m sure it’ll be fine. I mean, they’re your parents, so they’re supposed to love you no matter what, so. Yeah."

Trevin just shrugs. 

"I guess, man." He stops for a moment, thinking, before he adds, "And, uh, hey. Thanks for being so cool about it. Even if you are… y’know…"

"Gay," Bruce says with a smile. "It’s okay Trev, you can say it."

"I know, it’s just this is all new to me, but. Thank you."

"Don’t mention it, dude," Bruce replies with a smile. "What are friends for?"

He stuffs three cheetos in his mouth at once before Trevin can speak,  leaning forward slightly to ask, “So, do you have any cute guys on your track team? Spill.”

 

 

Trevin is sixteen and in tenth grade when Bruce calls him at school.

Trevin starts when his phone vibrates quietly in his pocket, and worry shoots through him because Bruce  _never_ calls while either of them are at school. 

He excuses himself from his English class, claiming he needs the bathroom, and then calls Bruce as soon as he’s in the hallway.

“Trev, please help me,” Bruce whispers brokenly when he answers the call. Something in Trevin snaps taut at the sound of his friend so clearly upset, and he frowns at the hallway as he looks around for a place he can talk where he won’t be overheard or found.

“Bruce? You okay?” He knows the answer, obviously, but he has to ask anyway.

“No I’m not  _fucking_  okay, Trev,” Bruce grits out harshly, obviously trying to keep from shouting; Trevin imagines that he’s in much the same situation, hiding in a hall or closet somewhere.

“So what’s wrong, then?”

There’s a shuddery inhale and exhale right against the microphone before Bruce finally mutters, “My parents aren’t my parents.”

Oh.

“Bruce,” Trevin says slowly, “are you sure? I mean, how do you know? Did they tell you?”

There’s a rustling sound from the other side, and Tevin suddenly has an image of the other teen nodding or shaking his head before remembering that he can’t be seen.

“No. No they didn’t. But we were doing genetics in bio today, and apparently blue eyes are recessive.”

 _Oh_. Trevin thinks he knows where this is going, but he asks anyway, just to be sure. “And?”

“And my parents both have blue eyes.”

“Yeah, an—?”

“And my eyes are  _fucking brown_.”

As the soft sounds of crying fill the line, Trevin wants nothing more than to reach out through the connection and hug his friend. However, he can’t so he instead speaks softly, trying to reassure his friend.

“Bruce, there are two logical explanations to this, man,” he says softly. “Either—”

“Either my dad isn’t my dad or neither of them are my parents, I know,” Bruce finishes for him. “I just… I don’t know what to think.”

“Well, I wouldn’t assume anything before you ask them about it. _Have_ you asked them about it?”

There’s a pause, and then a soft, “…No.”

“So start there, man,” Trevin murmurs. “And then, afterwards, call me. Or skype me. Or whatever. If you need to vent or shout or just cry or whatever. Call me, okay? I’ll be waiting.”

There a moment of silence, and then sniffling.

“Thanks, Trev,” Bruce mutters sincerely. “You’re the best. Thank you. I… Thank you.”

“No problem,” he answers. “After all, what’re friends for?”

 

 

Bruce, as it turns out, is also adopted. They spend many nights afterwards with Bruce simply raging about his parents not telling him, about him being too stupid to notice, about how it should’ve been fucking obvious to him. Trevin just nods along—except when Bruce says he’s stupid, then he chimes in and corrects him—and, when Bruce accuses him of being too accommodating, Trevin simply replies that he’s had years to come to terms with this stuff already. Bruce just found out. Of course he’s gonna have some processing time. And Trevin’s happy to help him through it.

Bruce gets an odd look on his face when Trevin says that before he lets out a soft, “Thanks, Trev. I really don’t deserve you.”

“Yup,” Trevin answers with a smile. “But, thankfully for you, I like you enough to stick around anyway.”

“Oh my god, shut _up_.”

“Make me.”

 

 

Trevin is seventeen and just starting his senior year when Bruce skypes him one night, clearly upset. He’s pacing back and forth in front of the laptop, a break from their usual pattern of sitting on the bed, and pointedly not looking at his webcam.

“So, a guy on my team asked me out today,” he says apropos of nothing as soon as the call connects. Trevin raises an eyebrow. In his chest, something clenches, but he ignores it. Bruce’s agitation is more important.

“Oookaaay…? What did you say?”

Bruce stops pacing for a moment, hands lifting to his forehead as he knuckles at his eyes.

“That’s the thing. I told him no.” The other teen looks up suddenly, staring at his wall. “I told him I already had a boyfriend.”

The clenching sensation in Trevin’s chest  _twists_ , but he continues ignoring in despite the way it’s making him feel short of breath.

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” Bruce continues. “He said he’d never seen me with this boyfriend.” His gaze travels slowly to the side until he’s staring right at the computer. “I told him that’s ‘cause it’s a long-distance kind of thing.”

Trevin’s heart stops in his chest.

“Oh?”

Bruce continues staring at the screen, then slowly moves towards the bed and sits, moving his laptop so that his face fills the screen.

“I like you Trev,” he whispers, eyes darting away before he seems to force them back. “I… I think I have for a long time. And, I don’t know… I don’t know if you, but I… I think I might even lo—” he bites down on his words, tears shining in his eyes as he looks away. “Forget it, it’s stupid. I’m sorry, I’ll just.”

“Me too,” Trevin whispers, finally managing to get his jaw to work. “Me too, Bruce.”

The other teen’s mouth flaps for a moment before his eyes widen comically.

“Really?”

Trevin nods. “Yeah. For a long time now, I think. I just… I think I ignored it. Or like. Didn’t think about it. Because  I figured you would have someone or weren’t interested.”

They’re both silent for a long moment before Bruce snorts.

“We’re both idiots, aren’t we, Trev?”

Trevin smiles so widely he feels like his face might split in half.

“”Yup. But, if you want, I’m your idiot.”

Bruce nods. “I’d like that.”

 

 

They go slowly. Well, as slowly as two horny now-eighteen-year-olds who haven’t really done anything with, well, anyone beyond their own hand are liable to go. Which is to say, it takes them eight days before they jerk off together on skype.

Trevin drinks in the sight of Bruce as they both strip for each other, the defined muscles of his friend’s— _boyfriend’s_ —chest and stomach as they ripple. Not for the first time, he wishes he could reach through their call and just  _touch_. Or that they had a better connection. He lets his hair hang in his face as he takes his shirt and pants off, hanging in front of his eyes like a curtain. When he strips off his boxers, hard cock slapping his stomach, there’s a soft, “Fuck, Trev,” from the computer, and Trevin looks back up at the computer to see Bruce positioned in front of his laptop so that his body is on display, openly stroking himself. Trevin takes a moment to analyze his boyfriend’s dick: it looks to be about the same size as his own, although if he had to guess it looks like maybe Bruce wins out in girth. Smirking and stretching, allowing the muscles he knows he’s developed from track to flex, he relishes in the sound of Bruce’s breathing stutter before he positions himself in front of his own laptop.

He learns several things from their first session together.

First and foremost, that Bruce talks nonstop during sex.

Second, that Bruce may talk dirty, but if Trevin does it back to him he completely loses it.

Third, when Bruce comes, he’s  _loud_. Like,  _oh-shit-I-think-you-woke-my-parents_  loud.

Fourth: coming in time with Bruce is the single most satisfying orgasm Trevin has ever had in his life, despite the waking-parents scare.

“I love you,” Trevin whispers, then feels his stomach drop as he realizes what he’d just said.

Bruce, however, just smiles, breathing softly and still covered in his own release.

“Love you too, Trev,” he whispers back.

Trevin may or may not have to resist the urge to scream in happiness. After all, he _really_  doesn’t want to tempt fate again.

 

 

Trevin is eighteen when he meets Bruce in person for the first time.

He’d told his parents about his relationship with the other teen within weeks of them first getting together. They’d both been happy for him, and his mom had even admitted that she’d secretly been hoping they’d get together ever since Trevin had come out to them.

Then he tells them that he wants to visit Bruce. They’re less enthusiastic about the idea, but still supportive. They even help him pay for the tickets.

Prior to his visit, though, Trevin’s parents insist that he make a good impression on Bruce’s parents.

So they take him to get his hair cut.

Trevin complains the entire way to the salon, but ultimately acquiesces because, truthfully, he’d been planning on getting it all cut off soon, likely before he went to college. When he’s done, only a half-inch of his original almost-twenty remaining, he stares at the mirror in wonder. He looks completely different. Afterwards, he refuses to video call Bruce, telling him that he has a surprise for him when they see each other.

Which, as it turns out, is how he breaks the news to Bruce that he’s coming to visit. To say that the other teen is excited would be akin to saying that the sun’s surface is a little warm.

When Bruce picks him up at the airport, they kiss for the first time. It’s not a chaste kiss by any means; there is probably-sort of-definitely tongue involved. Trevin allows himself to drown in the feel, the taste of his boyfriend for a moment, and then he pulls back, smiling into Bruce’s deep brown eyes as he presses their foreheads together.

“Hi babe,” he whispers, the pet name falling from his lips easily. If Bruce’s smile is any indication, he likes it.

“Y’know,” Bruce mutters against his lips, “I think I like you better with short hair. Although,” he looks around at the people casting them weird looks, “we’re probably gonna get the ‘are you two brothers?’ spiel even more, now.”

Trevin shrugs. “Let them think what they want. I don’t care.”

Bruce hums his agreement against his lips when Trevin dives back down for another kiss.

 

 

As it turns out, Bruce’s parents  _do_  care. Because, in a cruel twist of fate, they knew that Bruce had a twin brother. They also know, the second they lay eyes on him, that Trevin is that twin brother.

Many frantic phone calls between New York and California and plenty of tears later, Bruce and Trevin announce that they  _don’t_  care.

“We weren’t raised like brothers,” Trevin argues. “We don’t even have the same last name. We just so happen to have the same genes, and we can’t have kids so it’s not like that matters anyway.”

It takes some time, but, eventually, their parents agree. They aren’t happy about it, but, after a conference call between the four of them—during which Bruce and Trevin sit together in the living room while they listen in on snippets of conversation that filter through the door, Bruce’s parents emerge and say that, though they’re not completely  _okay_  with it, they understand and they can’t fault the boys for who they fell in love with.

“We just want you two to be happy,” Bruce’s mom tells them, and Bruce sweeps her up in a hug as his dad pats the two teens on the shoulder.

 

 

When they have sex for the first time, Trevin may or may not get off slightly on telling Bruce, “C’mon bro, fuck me harder.”

Bruce may or may not come on the spot.

 

 

Five years later, they announce their engagement.

Both families attend the ceremony a year later. Both congratulate them.

Life is good.

 

 

Three years into their marriage, four after their engagement, the Kaiju start attacking.

Bruce and Trevin don’t even discuss it. They pack up their apartment and answer the call to join the PPDC when it forms. In Anchorage, they encounter a pair of brothers, nearly starving, who are orphans, not due to the war, but due to bad luck and shitty parenting.

They take them in without a second thought. They quickly come to think of the boys as their sons. When it becomes obvious that they have an attachment to each other much like Bruce and Trevin do, well.

Who are they to judge?

In the end, when Raleigh and Yancy each come to them individually asking what they should do, the twins’ response is to always do what their heart tells them to. After all, love is scarce enough these days.

What’s more, they refuse to break up the small family they’re forming, here, now. It might not be normal, but it’s what they know, and it's _theirs_. And, after all, the rings glinting on their fingers are a testament to the things they promised each other: that, come what may, they will face the world side-by-side.

Together.

**Author's Note:**

> The Gage Twins' birthday is September 15th (1986, if you're interested), which is why I keep mentioning an age and a grade. I'm aware Skype wasn't around then. Nor were any really good VOIP services. *shrugs* but oh well. I fudged the reality a bit. Also, if the section where Bruce figures out he's adopted as well feels rushed, I apologize: Tumblr ate that section and the one after it, and I had to rewrite them at one in the morning. ALSO: forgot to mention (but I'll add it here) that the reason Bruce's cursive seemed backwards to Trevin was that Bruce is left-handed. It was supposed to be mentioned in the cybering scene but. Oh well. 
> 
> Come talk Pac Rim with me on ~~[my tumblr](http://ohhaiguise.tumblr.com)~~[my new tumblr](http://sublimediscordance.tumblr.com) if you want. 
> 
> Concrit and comments in general are always welcome.


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